


Dave Strider, that goddamned rich bitch asshole

by commaAbuser



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Age Difference, Blackrom, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Height Differences, Humanstuck, Invasion of Privacy, M/M, Sugar Daddy, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Karkat Vantas, alphadavekat, davekat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 06:03:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15527712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commaAbuser/pseuds/commaAbuser
Summary: Dave Strider is a famous film director and he's not used to anyone calling him out on his bullshit until he meets film student Karkat Vantas.





	Dave Strider, that goddamned rich bitch asshole

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notwest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notwest/gifts), [nomisupernova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomisupernova/gifts), [egosweetheart](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=egosweetheart).



It's 8:34 a.m. and you're sitting in the passenger seat of your Delorean. Your driver and bodyguard is fetching you a coffee from the local hipster joint across the street from the film college you're visiting today in West Hollywood. You're fucking around with your old camera. It's a boxy little Nikon from the 1970s and it takes film. It's worn down in places, metal and plastic long since laid bare by your loving caress. It's your baby. You often just sit and look through the viewfinder, just searching for anything interesting. It's reflex by now to just snap away. So when you see him, nothing in particular crosses your mind. He's interesting, so you snap shots as rapidly as you can. 

As soon as he's out of view, you remember to breathe. 

Holy shit. 

You place the lens cap on your camera and put it back into the camera bag. You're satisfied today. That boy was pure art from head to toe. His black beanie over shaggy wavy-curly black hair, the messy eyeliner and dead looking eyes, the sallow yet tan skin, the facial piercings. You had seen a thousand boys like this but this one had a palpable aura about him. He was a gorgeous mess. You can almost see him ruined and wrecked on the mattress beneath you. You inhale sharply. 

Your thoughts are interrupted by your chauffeur coming back with the coffee. Despite not having worked for you very long, he notices your unease and says, "Everything okay, Mr. Strider?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just pretty early for me, can't start the day properly without caffeine," You say, laughing it off. 

It's nothing for you but a passing fascination. You swallow it like you've swallowed all the others. In one way, he'll always belong to you, if only on film. One perfect moment of one perfect person, forever. No complications.

You sigh and then take a swig of your caramel macchiato. Extra caramel drizzle. Exactly how you like it. You chill with your driver and enjoy your coffee until it's time to head to the school. 

It's autumn in Los Angeles, the gray smog cuts the sunrise down in saturation until everything is a bright gray haze. You're wearing a distressed t-shirt of your own design underneath a women’s black Versace jacket with the sleeves rolled up. You can tell the college coordinator is staring at your tattoos. You don't show them off often, but you feel like it today. She ushers you in with polite words and a smile that you're fairly certain is more flirty than she intends. You ignore it. You schmooze. You shake hands. You don't even know the name of this film school. You don't really care. It's one of many you have to speak at and this is just another thing on your schedule for today. It's not that you don't care about youth, you do, you just don't think it matters where they learn and where they subsequently go into debt. You hand out your artifacted business cards. Everyone pretends to be impressed. 

You're just a guy here to give a speech about your niche movies to a small crowd of film students. That's all. 

You try not to be a rich asshole, but you are one. 

When you walk out into the small auditorium, you don't pretend to be someone other than Dave Strider, the human. The college coordinator introduces you, and you watch all the students smile and clap, except one, right near the front. That one just happens to be the gorgeous boy you saw walking past your Delorean earlier that morning. Oh fuck. 

"Right so," You say into the mic, chuckling, "I had this whole speech prepared, but I think I'm going to play it by ear. I never went to film school. I happened into this industry and I got lucky. It's not really right of me to try to tell you kids who are studying so hard what makes a film great. If you ask me, so much of that is up to luck. I'd like to turn this into a Q and A instead, if that's okay?" You ask the audience and you shoot a look to the college coordinator who gives you an awkward smile and a nod of her blonde, bobbed head. 

"Alright cool, so any questions for me?" 

You're surprised when the hot grungy boy stands up. You quickly realize you have to walk over to him with the mic, so you do so. Your heart thunders in your chest as you hold the mic next to his mouth. The phallic symbolism is not lost on you. He shoots you a look that could freeze your blood. His eyes are piercing and solid black. It's the first time in a long time that you've had to tell your dick to calm down in public. 

"I want to know," He begins, his voice higher pitched than you expected, but no less gruff. It has a unique sound, a tenuous melody. You're totally smitten. You try to memorize every sound, every word, even when they turn sour and surly, "Why do you think you, of all directors, should be coming here to talk to us about movies when your movies are completely devoid of meaning, they’re vapid self-aggrandizing romps through your own hubris, why should I pretend to see them as art when they’re just you having a wank at the random insipid echoes in your skull - the moive?"

His voice really curls around that last word, making a mockery of your purposeful misspelling, cementing his statement and sending a wave of butterflies through your body. You inhale.

If people in the audience mistake your pause as surprise at his words, it's not. It's your arousal. He's the perfect height, perfect weight, and perfect voice combo. He has a perfect mind too, for all you can tell. You can imagine throwing him into the nearest wall and shoving your tongue deep in his mouth. You clear your throat, "I'd rather make a movie that was pointless and meaningless than adjust an existing plot that everyone's already seen just so slightly and then make that formulaic shit over and over again just with new actors and actresses. I think my work got popular because people are tired of the same recycled trash with a new skin on it."

"Your work is toxic dumpster fire and it taints anyone who touches it with intense and paralyzing stupidity," The boy spits in retort, and his natural speaking voice is so loud, you're not sure he ever needed a mic. You can see his earrings from here, a row of cartilage piercings, a gauged ear, the way his medusa and snakebites sparkle, his double eyebrow rings glisten as he knits his thick brows together right into his bridge piercing in obvious disdain for you. People who look like him aren't usually such harsh critics of your work. He has to be at least ten years younger than you, raised completely in a digital age, while you still revel in certain analogue things. Is that the difference between the two of you? Hmm. You wonder what films he actually likes? You imagine him sobbing over every version of Anna Karenina ever made. You smile as he frowns.

"Thank you," Is all you say, once you remember to speak, and you take other questions, as he sits down, scowling. You're not thanking him for the diss on your movies, you're just thanking him for talking, you're thanking him for existing. It's genuine. 

Everyone else in the audience interested in different things, like how you came up with the artifacting and glitching and the actual process of making movies, the process of directing a film. These are things you can answer easily. You get asked about your tattoos, finally, and that is your sign that the audience is done with any real information you can give them about their future craft. 

You've had haters of your work before, that's nothing new. This boy's hatred was something else entirely, something visceral and pulsing at the back of your mind, something that settles hard into your belly. You lock eyes with him once again as you wave to the room. You can't help it. He sneers and rolls his eyes at you. Fuck. 

Once you’re back in the office with the college coordinator, your bodyguard, and all of her associates have scattered like so many gray suited rats - you have an idea. You nearly can’t wait for her to stop talking and thanking you on behalf of the college for you to pitch it. “Is it possible for me to pay for someone’s entire tuition, room and board, everything, including books, anonymously?” 

Her face goes white, but then she smiles that Hollywood smile. All veneers. “Ah, you’re interested in offering one of our students a full scholarship? I’m so honored that you’d want to support our school in this way!” 

You don’t give a rat’s ass about the school. You care about that skinny little punk with the angry face so you say, “No just one student, that angry boy in the front row, you know the one that hates my work?”

Her taut face loses some of its slack. You watch the gears turn in her mind. “You want to do this, anonymously, you’re sure?” 

“Absolutely,” You respond and you know to sweeten the deal so it seems like less of a special action, “And you know what, why don’t I throw in some money for campus improvements while I’m at it. How about ten million for some new gear for the film department, distributed at the school’s discretion?”

“That’s very very generous of you, Mr. Strider, we’d be honored,” She says, and she’s already clicking away on the computer as you pull out your checkbook. 

Your checks are custom made and printed with Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, desaturated, artifacted. They’re perfect. You have no use for your Centurion card if you can help it. 

“Karkat Vantas,” She says in a quiet voice, then she shows you his student ID photo, “This is the correct student, right?” 

“Yes, absolutely,” You say. Karkat Vantas, you memorize it. An interesting name for an interesting boy. You’re not sure she should’ve said his name out loud. You don’t draw attention to it. 

A few minutes later and you’re down ten million dollars and some change. It doesn’t affect anything in the slightest and the school is thrilled with you. Your bodyguard says zip, zero, zilch. No one does. Everyone knows you throw your money around like it’s nothing. It is nothing. You wish you could see the look on Karkat’s face once he’s told everything is paid in full for him. You decide that imagining it will have to be good enough because you know for a fact after staring him down that he’s smart enough to figure out who his mysterious benefactor was. You smirk.

You always enjoy the ride through Beverly Hills to get to Bel Air, where your ostentatious gated mansion was built ten years ago. As your Delorean rolls up to the gate of your brightly colored glitched out modern home, you breathe in deeply, then exhale. You let your driver deal with the gate. It’s beautiful. Your home will always be beautiful to you, but you can’t imagine a single soul loving it quite like you do after you’re dead. 

It has everything. A tennis court you don’t use. A spa you do use. A full gym. A movie theater that’s nearly regulation size. A huge infinity pool that stretches its wings inside for the few days a year that Los Angeles actually decides to be gloomy. 

You don't realize it until you get inside your house and your film is already developing in your darkroom that you have never met someone who has given you the reactions that Karkat has given you. There's a first for everything, you remind yourself. It meant nothing, you convince yourself. Yet as the images of his face slowly fade into the wet photo paper, you know otherwise - It means something. You never jerk off to photos you take. Never. It's a rule. You don't break that rule today either. But you want to, and that's enough to scare you.

You're getting off on hot boys hating you now? What the fuck?

\---

You wake up on a Thursday, your schedule is full and you don’t feel like fighting with your Agent. You manage yourself as much as possible, but you gave up long ago on organizing with everyone and every brand that wants your attention. It’s too much at this point. Fame is a bitch. 

You do push-ups next to your bed. It’s routine. Yet it’s hard with your raging boner bothering you. You thought you’d gotten over that aspect of being born with an unruly dick a few years ago. It’s him, it’s Karkat. It’s his fault. You’ve pinned his pictures up in your house. You’ve resisted making copies. You can’t stop thinking of him, it’s interrupting your life. You collapse on the floor on your back, your skin sticking to the marble. It’s cold. It’s soothing. You breathe heavily and stare at your mirrored ceiling. It’s second nature to you to reach up for your cell phone on the gilded nightstand without looking to call your assistant.

“Yo, I need you to send roses to someone, I’ll text you the name and location, you’ll have to find out which dorm he’s in on your own,” You say. 

“That’s no problem. How many roses do you want me to send?” Your assistant is nothing but efficient, professional, and discrete. You’d have it no other way. 

“Fill his entire dorm. Keep buying them until it’s so full he can’t see the floor, money is no object,” You instruct. 

“What color roses?” 

“Red, blood red, the brightest most beautiful red you can find. I don’t care if you have to buy multiple places out. Just do it.”

“Do you want to leave a message?” 

“Yeah, you know what, leave one card, just write ‘sup’ in Comic Sans on it, leave all other information out.”

“Done. Do you need anything else Mr. Strider?” 

“No, that’s it for now, thanks,” You say, resolute. With this done, you feel better. He’s taunting you by existing, this Karkat, so you’re going to taunt him. 

You laugh. What are you fucking doing?

You jog to the gym in your sprawling mansion but the path seems different now. The colors are brighter, shifting, intense. Concentrating on your weight lifting routine is easier. You have more energy. You mistakenly attribute this to a new sample supplement you received in the mail lately. Being Rich has strange perks. Everyone wants your name on their product. 

You're halfway through a text to your assistant about the supplement when you realize it. It's Karkat. Again. 

You've never felt so restless in your entire life.

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter is Karkat's perspective! I don't have an editing schedule and have lots of unfinished multi-chapter fics, so bear with me. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Special thanks to @notwest & @nomisupernova & @egossweetheart for their help / reading / suggestions for this fic and encouragements to continue with it.


End file.
